Is there something you've noticed while driving through Tucson
that has piqued your curiosity? Or is there some piece of Old
Pueblo history you've wondered about? Drop us a line, and we'll
look into it.

Call the Star newsroom at 573-4232 or send an email to
oddity@azstarnet.com

If you frequent the UA campus, you've probably walked by it
hundreds of times without even knowing it's there.

Inscribed on the east side of the Old Chemistry Building's
facade are the words "BOBBY SANDS LIVES."

A chemistry professor who arrived at the University of Arizona
in 1988 said the story on campus is that someone spray-painted the
words on the building above the ground-floor windows in the
1980s.

In the process of removing "BOBBY SANDS LIVES" with a
sandblaster, it was etched into the building and preserved
permanently, professor Robin Polt said.

The vandal who defaced the Old Chemistry building likely wasn't
some prankster named Bobby Sands.

In May 1981, an Irish Republican Army political prisoner, Bobby
Sands, died on the 66th day of a hunger strike in an Ireland
prison, prompting protests and demonstrations and pro-Sands
graffiti across the world. Sometime after Sands died, the Old
Chemistry Building was hit with "BOBBY SANDS LIVES."

"When I first saw it, I thought it was a 'Bobby Loves Susie'
type of thing," said Scott Dreisbach, laboratory manager for the
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Nobody in the department recalls when the graffiti first
appeared because it was so long ago, said Dreisbach, who has been
at the UA for 12 years.